


love all you need to love before it goes

by biochemprincess



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: Gen, Season 4 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 20:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15178679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: Hannah kept him with her for as long as she could get away with.





	love all you need to love before it goes

**Author's Note:**

> title from the lyrics of 'mothers' by daughter (i KNOOOOW)

Hannah didn't remember dying, almost dying. She supposed she should, given everything this one singular moment in her young life would cause in the end. The butterfly, flapping its wings for the first time, creating a storm at the other end of time.  

She had memories of other things though.

Hannah'd reckon not many people remembered their mothers' first embrace. She did. But then not many people got the chance of meeting their mothers again for the first time.

In the quiet moments she still sometimes felt her mother's fingers stroking over face in wonder, like the phantom pain of a missing limb. For a very long time she hadn't been able to understand her mother's choices after her death.

How could you risk the structure of time, its very existence, for one person? How much force did one mind need to invent the impossible, only to save just one single soul? How much love did you have to feel inside your body and how didn't you go insane with it? How much pain felt in the loss of that love?

She had barely known Elliot Jones and his death had shaken her to the core. And it had seemed mutual. In such a short amount of time he'd had shown her true compassion, and like Katarina, the willingness to lay his life down for her.

There was Jennifer, who had raised her and protected her and named her again.

After everything was said and done, she'd forever be grateful for the lessons her parents had taught her on love, however different they may have been. Because they shaped her into the person she'd become, the one who made all her choices out of her own volition.

Hannah'd reckon not many people got to meet their sons before they gave birth to them.

 

* * *

 

Hannah kept him with her for as long as she could get away with.

As of now, he was her little boy and she was his mother. Time and fate hadn't laid their hands on him yet, tangled him up in this massive, inextrictable coil of cause and effect.

James was a sweet baby, quiet, born on a bone-chilling cold December evening. She loved him, unconditionally. It killed her to think about the future he'd have to live in. Whenever his tiny little fists wrapped around her finger, she thought about all the weapons they'd wield one day, the blood they'd spill.

Every time he opened his eyes to look at her she thought about his future version, every time she thought about Matthew. The moment he'd told her Emma had died she knew what would have to happen. But that wasn't the reason she'd chosen to be with him. All of her choices have only ever been hers.

_It is a love story._

And they shared so much, all the big and little things, the wonders of life.

She wanted nothing more than to wear his ring on her finger. Wanted safety and happiness and peace and her family. She wanted more.

But as her encounter with Bryan had shown there was only so much you could change about your nature, your nurture. She wouldn't change a single thing about her circumstances, herself, if it meant she'd arrive right there and then.

There was fate and there was free will and she'd chosen _both_. 

James started crying, his high-pitched screams piercing her heart. She understood now, that kind of love that could defy time itself. As she cradled him close to her chest and rocked him back to sleep, Hannah desperately wished he could one day forgive her for it, forgive her for being his mother.

Her hands reached for his chubby cheeks, feeling the soft skin underneath. Maybe her touch would stay with him too, maybe something within him would remember her unconsciously. Maybe all the love she poured out of her heart, like a endless waterfall, would take root in his heart and maybe it would stay. 

Time was so precious to her, limited and on the run; so she loved him enough to last a whole life time in only a short few months.

She wanted to give him the world and more. She wanted to guide him through his life, watch his first steps. Wanted him to have siblings and parents and a normal, ordinary life. It was a futile wishfulness, but she had nothing but her hope of a better future to fuel her and carry her through sleepless nights.

He grew heavier in her arms, all of his body going soft as he drifted back into a deep sleep. Hannah thought about changing the timeline, more than she should. Keeping him with her for far longer than she should. Forever. But the possibility of time resetting itself prevented her from it.

The consequences were too unpredictable, there was far too much at stake.

So just a little over a year after she'd first met Matthew Cole, she wrapped their son in a blanket, wrote a story on a piece of paper, and prepared to be Marion Woods for one last time.

 

* * *

 

Hannah tried to protect him from afar as best as she could. She couldn't return home, not with the broken tether, and she couldn't interfere here in any way, too afraid she might change some vital point in the timeline.

She hoped he'd feel her presence in his radius, even though he did not know her, even though she was too far away. Maybe James could sense his guardian angel, even though all she got were glimpses of him.

Often she missed her mother, sometimes she yearned to go home, yearned for the family they built out of the ruins of a broken world. But her story was over here, already written, and she was reaching the last few pages; while their story was only starting. Her epilogue; their prologue. The paradox of time. 

Maybe he'd find out the truth one day, maybe he'd find her. 

For her, perhaps was enough of an answer. As long as he lived, she'd be able to deal with anything.

Love could never be undone.

Especially not the love of a mother.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading and please let me know what you think about it. also @ mightyjemma.tumblr.com


End file.
